Fandango tipped us last month that they were working on an Android app and they just released the first beta to the Android Market. The application is centered around movies and theaters with the key feature being the ability to purchase tickets from your phone.

I installed the app to see how it compared with the current movies champ, Flixster, and found both apps had their advantages.

Flixster has extra options such as critics’ reviews, Rotten Tomatoes reviews, FaceBook integration, and quick links to sites like IMDB. Clearly, Flixster is the more polished movie app and offers the most features. However, Fandango includes the option to easily buy tickets from your phone, which is arguably the most useful feature.

Update (12/16): As many of our readers pointed out. Flixster also allows you to purchase movie tickets.

For only being the first beta release, I am fairly impressed with Fandango. The user interface could be tweaked and I would like to see critics’ reviews, but it provides the basic features that most people are looking for. Having the ability to purchase tickets with a few taps of my thumbs from virtually any location, pretty much ensures this will be a heavily used app.

Taylor is the founder of Android and Me. He resides in Dallas and carries the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and HTC One as his daily devices. Ask him a question on Twitter or Google+ and he is likely to respond. | Ethics statement

Yes! Now all we need is to be able to pull up the barcode right on the screen to be scanned when we walk into the theater, instead of having to print the tickets. (I’ve left them at home more than I can count) lol

I’m not sure where the author got his information, but I have definitely seen the option to purchase tickets on Flixter as well. Flixter also looks way more polished and has way more features than this new app. Fandango has a long way to go to replace it on my G1.

Flixster is only good if it offer you the ability to purchase tickets from your theaters. ALOT of theathers do not support flixster. But Fandango support pretty much all of them. Fandango is a way better service for purchasing tickets, due to the fact that alot more theaters support them. Im sure the app will eventually develop into a better app, like the iphone(which is an amazing app on this platform). So lets just wait a bit and im sure it will turn into something amazing